Footsteps
by kenzieB24
Summary: Please don't follow in my footsteps. Don't make the mistake and stay. Get out while you can. My footsteps are hard and unclean. They'll tear you down until you break. I broke, and I can't stand to watch you break too. Elizabeth Prentiss centered. PLEASE REVIEW!


**I don't own. Enjoy! Rated M for language.**

"FUCK YOU! I HATE YOU, YOU STUPID BITCH!" Emily yelled throwing something at her mother. Emily stormed passed her. Boots stomping on the hard wood floor with every step.

"Don't you dare curse at me, young lady!" Elizabeth yelled at her 16 year old daughter. "Where do you think you're going?! GET BACK HERE NOW!"

"Don't tell me what to do!" Emily said still enraged even though her voice dropped to a dangerous low level.

"I can tell you what to do! I'm your mother!" Elizabeth yelled angrily.

"Mother's raise their children! Not nannies! You aren't my mother! You never were!" Emily said. Elizabeth felt the sting of her daughter's words.

"I am your mother! I carried you for nine months! I gave birth to you-" Elizabeth said angrily.

"THEN YOU HANDED ME TO A NANNY AND WENT BACK TO WORK! MOTHER'S ARE THERE! MOTHER'S LOVE THEIR CHILDREN! Mother's show up to things! Mother's give a fuck. You don't. You're just a cold, heartless, bitch and I wish you never even had me!" Emily says. With that she is out the door. Throwing stuff on her way. Breaking anything she can.

"Get back here!" Elizabeth tries, but it's no use.

"I'll call you later, Liz. I'm gonna go see Michael." Emily said with a slam of the door. Elizabeth could tell her daughter lit a cigarette by the way she talked through the side of her mouth. Elizabeth took a deep breath, and closed her eyes tightly. She felt the tears that she couldn't cry in front of her daughter. Emily was gone for a few hours. Maybe even a few days. Out there doing God knows what with that boyfriend of her's. Elizabeth stood in the shards of glass around her, and walked to her kitchen to get a broom. Silently she swept the glass up.

_"I'm going to school to be an ambassador." Elizabeth said quietly. Richard smiled._

_"Really?" He asked. She nodded as they lay by the river bank on the soft grass of the forest floor._

_"Yes. I want to travel. I want a life. I don't want to just sit at home pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. I want to move to great things. I want to help people." Elizabeth whispered softly. _

_"Working for the government is gonna be really hard by the time this war is over, if it ever ends." He says. She nods._

_"I know, but I can do it." She whispers to him. _

_"If anyone can, it's you." He told her stroking her face with his thumb._

_"I love you." Elizabeth whispered to Rick. He smiled at her and captured her lips in his. _

_"I love you too." He said with a wink. She says reaching for him again. This time he unbuttoned her dress, and they made love on that soft grass of the riverbank._

Elizabeth put the glass shards in the trash, and then bit her lip. Thinking about her youth was painful, to say the least. She was happy for a bit, then he changed. He wasn't as good as she thought he was. She used his pain as an excuse for his doings. It was always her fault.

_"Why won't you listen to me, Rick?" Elizabeth yelled at him. He shook his head. _

_"You, you don't understand what it's like! You don't have any family! You don't know!" He screamed at her. _

_"I don't know what it's like, okay, but I'm here for you! I'm here." She says. "You can't keep going out with them, I'm going to college soon. I'm going to get an apprenticeship with an embassy. You can't keep attacking the government I'm trying to work for." She says._

_"Then why are you even trying to work for them? Can't you see that all this is wrong?" He asks getting close to her face. That's when she smelled it, whiskey. She bit her lip. _

_"I know it's wrong. I know all of this is wrong. I just need my life to move forward. I need to get out of here." She says quietly. He shakes his head._

_"You don't understand me." He says angrily. _

_"Please stop yelling at me Rick." She asks quietly. His eyes switch colors it seems. One dark shade of brown to an even darker shade of brown._

_"Stop yelling? Why should I stop yelling?" He asks stalking towards her. Elizabeth closes her eyes and waits for it. "You never listen to me. You're just a stupid fucking whore, you know that? You should just stay here. Nobody cares about you there. You'll never succeed. I don't even know why you try." He says before striking her. She doesn't cry in front of him. She had promised herself she'd never cry in front of anyone ever again._

"Emily...where've you been?" Elizabeth asks letting go of her tea, and walking towards her daughter.

"No where." She hears the sad voice of her daughter. Elizabeth reaches out for Emily, and even though Emily fights her she wraps her in a hug.

"I just want you to talk to me." Elizabeth whispers. She hears Emily wince, and immediately backs up. She looks at Emily's face, and gasps. "God, what happened to you? Who did this to you?" Elizabeth asked hurriedly before running in the kitchen to get Emily ice.

"No one. I'm fine. I just...fell." Emily says biting her lip. Elizabeth looks at her, and shakes her head.

"No you didn't. Please tell me what actually happened."

_"It was my fault I did something to make him angry. He got mad at me, and then he...he grabbed my arm and slapped me across my face. I couldn't...I couldn't fight back." Elizabeth says to her roommate at her dorm._

_"What did you do?" Betty Ann asked. Elizabeth bit her lip._

_"I just...I dropped a plate. It shattered and made a mess. I didn't get it clean in time. I didn't mean...I didn't mean too." Elizabeth says. _

"Nothing mom. It was my fault. I shouldn't have talked back to him." Emily says with a frown. Elizabeth looked at her daughter and felt tears spring to her eyes. _  
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_Please don't follow in my footsteps, _she thought. _Don't make the mistake and stay. Get out while you can. My footsteps are hard and unclean. They'll tear you down until you break. I broke, and I can't stand to watch you break too._

**I know this was odd for me, no Demily, but I wanted to try something new. I've been trying to get back into writing. I had a free day today and wanted to finish something I had been working on for a while. Please review! PLEASE!**_  
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